Pages

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Disability , negative medical attitudes and "near death" experiences

Terri tells her story How I DIDN'T Die about how the medical system responded when she had an accident and severed her spine.

She writes about how her family had to fight the medical system to get her the care she needed to survive while doctors told them she would have no quality of life.

It took my mom following one of the doctors around all day and to his car at the end of his shift to get him to open up and talk. She went into his office and grabbed a picture of his family and held it up to him and asked, “What would you do? Would you let them pull the plug on the one you loved without doing everything you could?”

My mom came back to my room and I remember seeing her cry for the first time. She held my hand, said a prayer, and promised me everything would be OK. She said she would fight to the end even if she had to tear the hospital apart.

The doctors came in the next morning earlier than usual and told us they were prepping me for surgery. My mom asked what kind. He said he couldn’t sleep the night before because of her and he was going to put me on a ventilator, which would breathe for me. When I got out of surgery they had a rotating bed waiting for me. The bed helped with weight shifts and shook — to help break up the stuff in my lungs.


Only then did she begin to improve and, eventually, survive her injuries.

She also writes:

A new Website and TV series is looking for first-person stories from patients, their families, loved ones, and doctors about how personal experiences have shaped what we believe about death and dying, and about the decisions we make for ourselves, for loved ones, or for patients at the end of life. The website is: http://how-we-die.org/HowWeDie

The series, tentatively titled “Stories,” is being developed by Marc N. Weiss, creator of the long-running PBS series P.O.V. and Tom Yellin, a veteran network news and public affairs producer. The series will explore experiences that tested or challenged their values and beliefs about who decides when and how we die, and what role, if any, government and healthcare institutions should play in those decisions. Visit the site and submit your story! http://how-we-die.org/HowWeDie


If any of you have stories to tell, please visit the above site.

h/t Not Dead Yet

3 comments:

Katja said...

You might want to replace the Facebook-generated URL for Terri's story (confusing for those trying to get there from your entry) with the direct URL: http://cdrnys.org/wordpress/?p=232

Ruth said...

I will- thanks, Katja.

man with desire said...

Most people are probably curious about what lies ahead after death, beyond the border of death. This may be a reason why they seek knowledge from spiritism sessions or books that discuss this issue. Many have also had personal close-to-death experiences – i.e., experiences when their heart has stopped in the hospital or in connection with an accident and when they may have seen themselves as if from the outside; they may have seen the operations done to them or the entire operating room. Some may have also seen in connection with their experiences a being of light that seems to be full of ‘love and compassion’.

The major topic as comes to this conversation is indeed generally connected with the question of whether all near death experiences are positive and will everybody end up fine beyond the border in spite of the way they have lived on the Earth. Many researchers want to believe this but is it true?


http://koti.phnet.fi/elohim/Border_of_death_experiences